Bubonic plague is the best-known form of the disease plague, which is caused by the bacteriumYersinia pestis. The name bubonic plague is specific for this form of the disease, which enters through the skin, and travels through the lymphatic system.

If the disease is left untreated, it kills about half its victims, in between three and seven days. The bubonic plague was the disease that caused the Black Death, which killed tens of millions of people in Europe, in the Middle Ages.[1]

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Different kinds of the same disease

There are different kinds of Bubonic plague. The most common form of the disease is spread by a certain kind of flea, that lives on rats. Then there is an incubation period which can last from a few hours to about seven days.

This happens when the bacterium can enter the lungs. About 95% of all people with this form will die. Incubation period is only one to two days.

The abortive form

This is the most harmless form. It will result in a little fever. After that, there are antibodies that protect against all forms for a long time.

History

During the 1300s, this epidemic struck parts of Asia, North Africa, and Europe. Almost a third of the people in Europe died of it. Unlike catastrophes that pull communities together, this epidemic was so terrifying that it broke people's trust in one another. Giovanni Boccaccio, an Italian writer of the time, described it: "This scourge had implanted so great a terror in the hearts of men and women that brothers abandoned brothers, uncles their nephews, sisters their brothers, and in many cases wives deserted their husbands. But even worse,... fathers and mothers refused to nurse and assist their own children."[2]

The plague was not just carried by rats as some people assume. The fleas also carried it. It came abroad from Kaffa by the Black Sea. From there the disease started to go new places in 1347. It went to England in 1349. There it killed half of the people in England. 70% of people who got plague died. Pigs are also to blame for the transmission, as the bacteria stayed in their blood system, and when eaten, people caught the plague. This is a reason why so few Jews or Muslims caught the disease.

Modern history

Samples of this bacteria are carefully controlled. There is much paranoia (fear) about it. Dr. Thomas C. Butler, a US expert in this organism was charged in October 2003 by the FBI with various crimes. This happened after he said he lost samples of Yersinia pestis. This is the bacteria that causes bubonic plague. The FBI did not find the samples. They do not know what happened to them.

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